BLOG

Today VMU announced that they are using the ANTHEM platform for their social networking category. This deployment is a little different from the way Sprint used the platform. Sprint used it to churn out individual applications, whereas Virgin deployed a single application. Both ways are fine, but as a user I personally prefer the single application approach because I use more than one social networking site. Now there is nothing more for VMU to do when they want to add more SNS. The “application” is already out there, all a new SNS has to do is plug into ANTHEM and the next day it shows up in the main menu.

I am in sales, so I demo our product a lot, and I have been using the Virgin demo because it shows how vastly different all of these sites are and how even through a single interface those differences can be shown to the end user to create very unique experiences but with a transparent UI.

We love Virgin Mobile. They have done a great job of reaching some very important demographic groups and have been careful to match those groups with a diverse set of community sites. The next phase of their deployment will focus on layering in key mobile functionality to better serve their subscriber base.

On that point, it is important to reiterate that “mobile social networking” is not “social networking on mobile.” The latter is a web-centric view of the world that makes the broad assumption that all users that matter are primarily on, or came from, the web. The priority of a web-centric social networking site is to drive the web experience. Their interest in any mobile carrier will be A) to get a messaging bind and B) to deploy a free WAP product, if at all.

The messaging bind is to facilitate alerts from the web to mobile. The use case is that an online user got a message or a friend request or whatever and they want to be notified of it on their mobile phone because they are not in front of their computer. The user gets the alert, which compels them to go to their computer to take action.

If this is a social networking service provider’s only interest, ANTHEM can provide that functionality but make it even better for users. ANTHEM has a messaging module that can handle the one-way alerts I mentioned, but it also enables proxy messaging through our gateway. This means users can get the alert as in the example above, but can also take action, like respond, select options, view content, and so on. Aside from providing immediate gratification to consumers, it also has proven to drive messaging usage, and there is an attractive business model built around it.

We view the mobile social networking experience as being complementary to the web-based experience, and see it as an important consumer touchpoint to keep the user base engaged. The web experience is obviously very engaging, but a 2-inch mobile screen is a comparatively difficult environment in which to fully engage consumers who are used to the joy of a 20-inch monitor. Trying to replicate the web experience fully doesn’t work, but presenting certain aspects of the web experience can work very well.

ANTHEM provides SNS providers with a sort of “conversion ladder” to present consumers with the level of interaction they desire and gives them a frictionless way to get to other interfaces as well. There are three primary presentation components to ANTHEM, each of which can function on its own, but combined they present a very rich experience to users:

Proxy Messaging – An SNS or carrier wishing to deploy a messaging-centric mobile social networking solution can do so with our Proxy Messaging Gateway. It is better than one-way alerts because A) it is two-way, which drives messaging revenue and B) protects users because while it feels like SMS and MMS, the user’s phone number is never revealed.

Thin Client (XHTML) – Any mobile developer will tell you that WAP is not “easy” the way it should be. ANTHEM provides a turnkey WAP interface of any social networking site. This makes things easier for SNS, but it is mostly to accommodate carriers who want or need to provide an XHTML interface to the entire category. (Virgin Mobile is a good example here – many of their handsets do not support J2ME, so having a full WAP deployment is important.) Even if a SNS has their own WAP site already developed, many carriers’ social networking categories are going to use ANTHEM to be provisioned with a thin client interface that is messaging-centric, so integration provides users a more robust top level experience, but then they can click off to a different WAP experience if an SNS wants it that way and the carrier will allow it.

Thick Client (J2ME, BREW) – The most immersive experience is the thick client. Aside from providing the most relevant web functions but in a mobile interface, a thick client enables carriers and SNS providers to do things that are not possible with WAP. First of all, carriers can preload a single white-labeled client whereas they are unlikely to preload the top 10 social networking sites. (Also, when they want to add more partners in the future, it all happens on the backend.) Preloading is a proven way to drive discovery and usage at least an order of magnitude over downloading. It also enables some key handset integration touchpoints, namely with the camera, the PIM and the gallery, all of which are proven to be key drivers of usage and revenue.

The key mobile functionality that I alluded to includes functionality that only the mobile users of a particular SNS provider may see. This is because there are things that make sense in the mobile space that may not make sense to a web user and vice versa. We faithfully represent our partners’ web-based content and functionality, but then we provide them the option of adding mobile-centric options that engage those users in a unique way. (I’ll talk more about these functions in a month or so.)

The end result is an approach that respects the SNS providers’ need for a unique branded presentation to users but that is simply better for mobile users because of how it is presented.

Community Connect is the most recent Social Networking Service (SNS) provider to plug into the ANTHEM platform. Community Connect is an interesting company: They have a well-developed publishing platform that extends the social networking construct across multiple ethnic verticals. They operate BlackPlanet, MiGente, AsianAvenue, GLEE, and Faithbase. I am excited to be serving Community Connect because so many of our backlogged carrier partners have asked for vertical communities.

The reason for this is anecdotally obvious: The mobile data consuming segment skews young, and within that consuming population it segments into ethnic verticals.

Philosophical discussion: Labels are a handy way to organize. I have a friend who played water polo in college and wanted to play as an adult and was therefore looking for an adult league. There isn’t one in San Diego. But there is a “gay” water polo league in San Diego. He isn’t gay, but he likes to play water polo so he called up the league. Of course, they were happy to have him on one of the teams, as “gay” is obviously not a requisite for playing water polo. He explained to me that he learned that once you put a label on yourself like a big yellow PostIt note on your forehead, it makes it way easier to pick each other out of a crowd. There are certain lowest common denominators that define us and that may be a good starting point for other shared interests.

For instance, calling yourself a “Republican” communicates a lot about you because there is a well-developed and reinforced understanding of what it means to be a republican. You may be socially and fiscally conservative, tend toward certain moral and religious beliefs, etc. This may only be in contrast to existing alternatives: How can you accept the label “conservative” unless you know what “liberal” means and what the delta is between them? Then, of course, splinter groups evolve. You may be “moderate” or you may be a “fundamentalist” or you may be “radical” and all of these labels may be children to a parent label that makes everyone better able to identify with each other and find each other in a crowd.

Every network operator deploying our platform has a similar strategy for their social networking categories, and they all involve providing a “complete” offering to their subscribers. What does “complete” mean? Well, across the board that means the top 20 social networking sites, large general brands like AOL, large affinity brands like MTV, and most importantly to most, key ethnic or special-interest verticals.

This all comes down to Affinity. When a consumer has an affinity for a certain vertical, the value of everything delivered by that vertical increases. This effect can be attributed to brands, to people, to political parties, to products, to demographics, to ethnicities, to religious beliefs, etc. There are now social networking sites for baby boomers, for tweens, for democrats, for doctors, for people who own iPhones, for practically every niche you can think of. Some of those niches are larger than others, and Community Connect reaches some of the largest. The point is that consumers are segmented into definable groups, and there is nothing wrong with giving those consumer groups applications tailored to their specific demands.

So now Community Connect can provision its mobile service on every network operator that uses our platform, which is a zero-cost, turn-key mobile strategy for them, and the network operators deploying our platform have a turn-key vertical social networking offering to give their subscribers. Hitwise recently ranked BlackPlanet the 4th largest social networking site, while MiGente was 19th.

A note on our integration with Community Connect: The ANTHEM platform is very flexible. Any SNS provider can bring their own UI if they want, or they can use ours. (Community Connect is using ours.) Either way, the functionality can be very deep or very light depending on the preferences of the SNS. Every social networking site has similar features like messaging, profile, friend list, etc., but every social networking site also has very unique functionality. In the case of Community Connect, there are some unique differentiators that we enable nicely in the mobile version. Also, like every SNS enabled through ANTHEM, deep integration to the device makes for a great user experience. Subscribers can take pics right from the app and send content to their friends via the device’s address book.

Several carriers directed us to integrate with Community Connect, and we’re glad they did – we think this is a key part of any network operators offering, and now that Community Connect is plugged into ANTHEM, it is a zero-effort deployment option for every other carrier, too. Community Connect’s integration to ANTHEM took about a week, which is typical for most SNS partners, and now there is nothing more required to execute on their mobile strategy.

As we continue to build out the ecosystem around Intercasting Corp., I am really excited to welcome Community Connect as an important partner, and we will bend over backward to make their users happy with the absolute best mobile experience possible.